In the current state of integrated circuit technology, an integrated circuit device will often be in the form of a die. Such a die is typically mounted onto an underlying substrate such as, for example, a carrier substrate to form a “package.” Some packages may include one or more dies coupled to a substrate such as, for example, a leadframe, which is frequently made of copper or copper alloy material. The leadframe may also include a die paddle to support the die. To form the package, an encapsulant material is generally used to encapsulate the die and the die paddle.
A package may experience reliability and/or functionality issues arising from a failure or defect in the package. One such failure is delamination. In general, delamination is the separation of the encapsulant material from one or more elements of the leadframe, or vice versa. Such delamination may lead to other problems such as undesirable accumulation of moisture, which may sometimes lead to cracking of the encapsulant material and/or further delamination due to expansion of the moisture during thermal processing. Although various reasons are thought to cause delamination (e.g., oxidization of the copper or the size of die paddle), no effective solution has been developed.